The Hunt sisters couldn’t be more different. Olivia is a Hollywood producer, used to first-class amenities and fleeing from any relationship commitment. Maddie lives the life Olivia ran from – still living near their parents in the small town where they grew up, she is happily married to her high school sweetheart. Olivia rages against the obstacles in her path. Maddie approaches life with idealism and optimism. As the novel opens, Olivia has had one disappointment too many and she is crafting her suicide note. But then she learns that Maddie is seriously ill, and Olivia rushes to her sister’s side.

The novel is comprised of a series of letters, emails, faxes, and telegrams from Olivia to her sister, parents, brother, best friend, ex-boyfriend, and a variety of people in her professional life or associated with her sister’s medical care. In this way the reader really gets to know Olivia, her thoughts, dreams, disappointments, what irritates, infuriates, and excites her.

I was pretty irritated with Olivia through much of the first half of the novel. I found her whiny, irrational, quick to place blame elsewhere, and unable to realize her own culpability in various events. But over time I began to admire her spirit, her tireless efforts to rekindle her career, to “demand” a cure for her sister, to try to set things right with her friends, parents, siblings, ex-boyfriend, colleagues, etc. ( )

This book is an epistolary novel which means it is written in letters. The interesting part is that the letters are written by one person only. You would think this would make it difficult to follow how the other characters are feeling, but Ms. Robinson does an excellent job of letting the reader know.

At least 200,000 families in our world struggling through leukemia every day. Leukemia is a life threatening cancer that affects your bone marrow, and white blood cells. Leukemia has no confirmed cause, or cure. This is one story of those suffering families.Out of the Hunt sisters, Maddie has leukemia and her older sister Olivia is an “almost” hotshot script writer for Hollywood. While Maddie has just married James, the man of her dreams, Olivia has gotten herself stuck in her own tale of romance and heartbreak with her ex, Michael. And just to make things harder, their father is an alcohol addict, and their mother is a money worrywart. The Hunt sisters honestly do have true and outstanding adventures.TTOAHS is a page turning tale with romance, tragedy, relief, and irony. Robinson’s twist of format with letters instead of chapters adds to the story and characters in many different moods. TTOAHS is a fantastic story with relatable characters, plots and situations. A great read for anyone looking for an escape into a different life. Robinson is amazing at creating characters that will stay in the back of your mind for a lifetime. ( )

There are at least 200,000 families in our world struggling through leukemia in a loved one every day. Leukemia is a life threatening disease, that attacks your bone marrow, and white blood cells. Leukemia has no confirmed cause, or cure. This is a story of one if those suffering families. Meet the Hunt sisters, Maddie and Olivia. Maddie was diagnosed with Leukemia. It turned her world, her husband's, her families', and her sister's world, upside down, and all around. Olivia is an "almost" hotshot Hollywood writer. Trying to work things out with her lover, and ex, Michael. Maddie was looking forward to a family with James, her newly wed husband. but that wasn't on the agenda for now. To make things harder, their father has become an insane alcoholic, along side with their worrywart of a mother. The Hunt sisters honestly do have "true and outstanding adventures." The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters is a page turning tale with romance, tragedy, agony, relief, and irony. Elizabeth Robinson's twist of format with letters instead of chapters adds to the effect of this heart felt story. Each character has a special place in the readers heart. This true and outstanding novel is a fantastic story with relatable characters and situations. A great read for anyone looking for an escape into a different life. Robinson is amazing at creating charters that will stay in the back of your mind for a life time.

"Olivia? It's your father. He always identifies himself, even all these years as my father. He was hammered. I nearly hung up on him.Oh, god... Honey...It's your sister. He was weeping, too.What? What Happened?Maddie's got...All your life you try to imagine what bad news sounds like, but when you actually hear bad news, it simply makes no sense; it's like being told the definition of a black hole by a physicist, directions by a local, the evidence of God by a priest. First you say, What?Then, after it's repeated to you-It's leukemia.- you say:No." ( )

"Hope is itself a species of happiness and perhaps the chief happiness this world affords." -- Samuel Johnson

Dedication

First words

Dear sister,

My name is Olivia Hunt. I am your sister. You are inside mom. Jim is our brother. He's OK for a boy.

Quotations

Dear Maddie, A new entry under the category Huh? is Riverdance. The way they jump up and down, they look like a bunch of little kids who have to go to the bathroom.

Last words

Maybe tomorrow he'll find his way there, his fingers and his lips and his breath together will hold and possess the G, and when they do the sound will be glorious because it will be full of the days before, the days when he was lost and only looking, playing happily in the Roman sun. Love, Olivia.

Wikipedia in English

The best letters are the ones that tell you everything. Not just the big, important stuff, but the little details of life. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters is a one-sided epistolary novel. We get to read all the letters written by Olivia Hunt, erstwhile film producer, over the year she learns her sister Maddie has cancer. Olivia scuttles between her hometown in Ohio, where Maddie still lives, and Los Angeles, where she's trying to get a film version of Don Quixote off the ground. Along the way, she writes newsy letters to her best friend Tina, crabby mash notes to her ex-boyfriend Michael, worried missives to her parents, breezy memos to (real-life) entertainment honchos, and cheery entertainments to Maddie herself. These epistles are crammed full of the asides and rambling descriptions that make for good letters, and good books. She writes, for instance, "I went down to the cafeteria. Judy, the cashier, told me her daughter passed the Bar exam, so that was nice to hear. She said I looked tired. I ate some iceberg lettuce with orange dressing in the empty cafeteria. And two chocolate chip cookies." It's not poetry, but the orange dressing and the chatty cashier go a long way toward capturing hospital life. It also helps that first-time author Elisabeth Robinson is a producer and screenwriter who worked on Braveheart (among others); she's just as detailed and knowing when she describes the seemingly Herculean task of producing a film. She includes gentle send-ups of Robin Williams and John Cleese, who star in the fictional picture, and terrifying glimpses of executive tantrums. (A Hollywood background has its downsides: the book occasionally strays into formula.) In the end, Robinson's hard work with all those details ultimately results in a believable, lovable heroine. --Claire Dederer

Unemployed actress Olivia Hunt leaves Hollywood to return home at the request of her younger sister, Madeleine, and finds herself struggling to help her sister, keep her parents under control, and reconnect with an old boyfriend.